Court deals travel ban another blow

SEATTLE – Another U.S. appeals court stomped on President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban Monday, saying the administration violated federal immigration law and didn’t provide a valid reason for keeping people from six mostly Muslim nations from entering the U.S.

The decision by a unanimous three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals keeps the travel ban blocked and deals Trump a second big legal defeat on the policy in less than three weeks.

The administration has appealed another ruling against the ban to the Supreme Court, which is likely to consider the cases in tandem.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia last month cited the president’s campaign statements calling for a “total and complete shutdown” on Muslims entering the U.S. as evidence that the 90-day ban was unconstitutionally “steeped in animus and directed at a single religious group,” rather than necessary for national security.

The 9th Circuit, which heard arguments in Seattle last month in Hawaii’s challenge to the ban, found no need to analyze Trump’s campaign statements. It ruled based on immigration law, not the Constitution.